kireic

Welp, they're shutting us down.

Effective January 2013, the Green Bay office will be closed.

The company is making offers to move people to Parsippany, NJ where they are centralizing all their Product Development. They have made me an offer - but it is not impressive. I'm not saying a definite "no," but they're going to have to step it up if they want me at all. In the meantime I have had 2 interviews over the last 2 days with other companies, so really I am beholden to no one. Ha-ha.

However, I feel indignant for the other people who are being let go, because most of them deserve a lot more than to be edged out and the company is going to have a hell of a time managing without them. Hope they enjoy that.

I forgot to mention! Chef Blowhard just recently left the company. I feel like throwing a damn party.

Except if I did that I would feel kinda guilty, because I sort of pity the guy for being so arrogantly self-assured that he doesn't realize that he sucks at alot of the things that count when you're a corporate chef. But, arrogant self-assurance is what got him the job, not some of his actual skills or ability to work with others, so... I don't know.

It's kind of how I felt when GW Bush left office - "I pity you, because you're just that sad now" mixed with "fuck you."

One of my strange, vaguely guilty pleasures when visiting Arkansas for business is to cruise the airwaves for Christian radio programs. There's a good 45 minutes between the airport and my destination, so there is just enough time to listen in and furrow my brow - too much longer and I get a headache, though whether it's from the facial tension of brow-furrowing or because my brain is attempting to process faith-based programming is difficult to determine.

So, this trip's bit of sermon was about "surrender to Christ" or somesuch thing. It was all about being saved, TRULY saved, by accepting Jesus and living a Christ-centered life. But the language sounded funny to me - it was all about Lord Jesus owning you (you do not own yourself!), and having purchased you with blood and tears at the crucifixion; that he already has power and control, but wants you to surrender to his will.

Is it just me (and all the Savage Love), or does that sound incredibly kinky?

I thought Catholics had a regular monopoly on the religiously-inspired sado-masochism, but this Evangelist language really seemed to indicate otherwise. Not being down in that kind of culture, stepping into it cold-turkey is a real surprise -  and now my mind is filled with images of Leather Daddy Jesus, holding out a choke collar, and saying, "I want to hear you say it."

I have a new boss again. She will technically be my 5th - I reported to one woman for a short amount of time when I first started, then was transferred to someone working under her (Geoff); after Geoff was my boss when I was in Productivity for a bit more than a year, then I was back to a different woman for a few months (she's still with the company, we just reorganized our teams) before this new one came in.

However, I am somewhat optimistic about this new one. She is down-to-earth, and feels easy to talk to. She has specifically said that she wants her team members to be able to pursue career development. So, in light of that, I am preparing my case for promotion.

- Compare my job to the criteria for Scientist. I actually applied to the Scientist position that opened up some time ago when another person left, because in reviewing that description, I fit the bill pretty much perfectly. If there is some criteria I lack, I would like to know what it is so that I may achieve it.
- Review my resume. Hey, it's fresh from applying for Scientist, so why not whip it out again? There's eight years of experience in there. I might polish it up to highlight my awesome knowledge of the brand I currently work on first, however.
- Trot out my performance reviews from years past. They are all good. None of them are "you are Superwoman" good, unfortunately, because that is the first tip that someone should be promoted. I will try to argue my case primarily on the fact that in the past 6 months I have adapted admirably to a very harsh work situation and a great deal more responsibility since being moved to this brand.
- Present a reminder of my knowledge of the brand, and why it is valuable.  Even before I was moved to this brand, I possessed a greater knowledge of the brand operations than almost anyone else in Product Development (presumably why they moved me over to it). If they were to lose me, that would really suck for anyone left behind, especially because of this next point.
- Present a reminder of who I replaced. The woman I essentially replaced was not only Scientist level, but a Senior Scientist. She was also assisted by a Technician. Above her was a manager (the same person who I reported to for Productivity). Based on whom I have replaced, it is difficult not to feel somewhat taken advantage of, especially as I seem to be expected to have some of the higher-level knowledge that the previous manager had. I don't want to dwell on this point too much, however, because I don't want it to be about "how awesome I am and how much a bunch of the people I replaced kinda sucked." That just looks bad. But I hope it does remind people that our group essentially replaced 3 people with 2, and one of those 2 is me.

This seems like a good way of going about it, though I'm not getting my hopes up very high. For one, I am of course making my case to someone brand new to the company. However, she seems to have a good amount of confidence about herself and I feel like she will make a case for me if she sees a valid one to be made. For another, I have heard for the last 2 years or so that there is no money budgeted for promotions - is there EVER? Yet there are promotions each year (one person has been promoted twice in 4 years!). I mean, seriously. If they seriously thought that a single dedicated person, with some assistance from other partially-dedicated people, should be handling this but without the responsibility or compensation of a Scientist, they were fooling themselves. They need to realize that the game is changed.

I really do hope they throw me a bone in the near future. I really like the challenge of working on this brand, but I feel like I am being taken advantage of because I haven't had a sufficient supervisory champion aside from Geoff, to whom I reported for 2+ years and who is no longer with the company. I would hate to feel I have to leave with some great opportunities on the table here, and on the whole I would hate to leave the good people I work with holding the bag on such a troublesome brand (although secretly a part of me would delight in it because it would be a big fat Fuck You to the management that didn't give a shit about recognizing what they had).

Wish me luck!!!

I'd like to share something that I kept reading and hearing while I was struggling with breastfeeding: "Correct breastfeeding should not hurt."

Please allow me to call BULLSHIT.

My adjustment to breastfeeding was a hard journey. By the time I was discharged from the hospital after Lucia's birth, my nipples were already injured and scabbing. In her first weeks, we visited the lactation consultant twice to make sure we were breastfeeding right. Even though latching her on was difficult, she was indeed getting the nourishment she needed. But, the pain of breastfeeding consistent for me; latching her on occasionally brought tears to my eyes because it stung so. Even when she wasn't feeding I could feel my nipples stinging - forget about what happened when I got chilly enough to pop goosebumps.

Add to this the horrific appearance of my nips. The skin of both had raw patches; the right side was probably about half covered with this raw skin. When I unpacked this side to feed lit looked kind of like cut bologna. I wept for my once-cute, petal-pink nipples, now hideous and wounded. They would not heal, and it depressed me that there was barely a hint of improvement.

I kept thinking I must still be doing something wrong, but the baby was sated after feeding and continued to make diapers and grow, so surely she was doing her part correctly.

Still, the pain was bad enough that I kept searching for a fix. I tried several of the suggestions I found.

Air-drying: Supposedly this lets the fats in breastmilk provide moisturization. But, when I "let the girls breathe" so to speak, I was letting down (leaking) very frequently. Ugh - and so much for drying out; I couldn't keep dry if I kept leaking!
Lanolin: helped keep the scabs from sticking to everything, but it wasn't magically fixing things the way that help articles seemed to suggest. This also applies to All-Purpose Nipple Ointment, which also helped a little but was not magical.
Pumping instead of nursing: still hurt like a bitch. Also a pain in the ass at 3AM when you have to stay up 50-75% longer to bottlefeed AND pump.

Not much help there. So against what seemed to be general advice, I invested in a Medela silicon nipple shield to wear while nursing. That took the edge off pretty well. Using it didn't adversely effect my milk supply at all, and Lucia didn't mind it after a little adjustment. Yay. Oh, and also, on occasion I filled a mixing bowl with icewater and alternated bending over it to submerge one breast, then the other. Boy, did that feel good.

So how long before I healed? THREE MOTHERLOVING MONTHS. At about the 2 month mark I noticed a definite improvement (coincidentally this was shortly after I returned to work and was pumping during the bulk of my waking hours 5 days a week), and by about 3 months the skin had all grown back and I didn't have to fear my body's painful reaction to the refrigerated section of the grocery store.

So when someone tells you breastfeeding should not/does not hurt, know that while perhaps it should not, it can, and does, even when done correctly. The last thing you need to tell a woman who is in the throes of postpartum hormone fluctuation is to tell her that what she is going through is not normal and that she's feeding her baby wrong. Trust me, it's not going to go over well. Have a box of tissues and/or riot gear onhand.

Work has been nuts lately, but it’s starting to calm down now that most of the data and documents that I needed are already entered into the system. I’m still waiting on documents from some suppliers before we can start the process of submission for USDA approval, but other than that, for the most part we have the first set of items nailed. Next comes the challenge of scheduling another plant trial for a different set of items, and that should prove interesting... I really hate organizing plant trials, because there are so many people you have to trust to get things done that it's a significant loss of control. I love benchwork and smaller tasks, but plant work is such a pain to coordinate.

Lucia is growing fast! Every week she’s learning more. Especially nice is the fact that she wakes up nice and easy, and just coos and talks until someone gets up to change and feed her – and then she’s all smiley and wiggly. It’s actually pretty amazing how happy she seems to be most of the time now; if only we all could be so carefree! She’s very interested in watching things and people, and touching/manipulating the objects around her, though she doesn’t seem to have much ambition to move around yet. She doesn’t really roll back-to-tummy or vice-versa, but she likes to turn over on her sides a lot (that’s usually what she does right away at bedtime and what she’s often doing in her crib when she first wakes up).

Speaking of cribs, she’s technically still in her Pack ‘n’ Play right next to our bed. We haven’t gotten the nerve up to have her sleep in her actual crib in the other room yet. Honestly, it’s just so easy to have her right there when she has the occasional nighttime fits of crying in her sleep – you can just pop her pacifier in and go right back to sleep without having to get up at all. Chuck and I agreed we will give it a shot next month when she’s about 24+ weeks old.

On a completely different note, though I have to remark that parenthood seems kind of isolating. Especially when you have such a young child – they aren’t really old enough to “play” with other babies/kids, so there’s not much excuse to get together with other parents under the auspices of a playdate. It’s just tough for Chuck and me to make friends overall; adding a baby into the mix just makes it extra challenging. Other nerdy parents must exist around here… so far the Packerland Parents Playgroup hasn’t yielded much, but we also don’t hit up the big events and stick mainly to the baby outings. Given some time I’m sure we can branch out a little, but it’s kind of frustrating in the short term. I can tell it’s getting to Chuck, and I’m not surprised – he’s the one who is home with Lu every day, and I’m sure she’s not quite the conversationalist he might desire to have onhand every day. But it’s gnawing a bit at me as well, even though I have coworkers to converse with on weekdays.

I have not posted in quite a while. It's tough to spare journaling time when there are so many other things to do. Also, I suppose it is a testament to the fact that things are going pretty much okay. Lucia is doing well, Chuck is in a good stay-at-home dad groove, I'm managing okay at work.

Which reminds me, I was FINALLY transferred out of Productivity and into... well, I don't know if I should name the brand, so let's call it TV Dinners. I'm really happy about this, just because my loathing of Productivity has steadily increased in the last year,  but I am frankly amazed at how badly a number of things are being handled within the category's projects. I'm about to inherit something of an utter shitstorm. However, I am not going to put forth valiant efforts to bail out sinking ships, because I am not willing to kill myself over all this. I have a wee one to worry about, and no amount of argument will convince me to put shitty work problems before her. So eat that.

We'll see how that goes, though.

In the last 6.5 weeks, a lot of things have changed in my life due to the arrival of baby Lu. Some are obvious – sleep is different, going places is more complicated, every room now contains a baby-related something. But some are different and unexpected.

For one, my sleep needs must have changed dramatically, and for the better. I’ve always been a huge sleep enthusiast, and sleep in any chance I get. Immediately after Lucia’s arrival, I slept horribly between my own anxiety and the interruptions to change and feed the little one. Then, as time progressed, I found that despite going to bed between 11 PM and midnight, waking in the wee hours for 30-45 minutes, and still having to wake up around 7:30 AM, I can still be awake all day and not be dying for a nap. I don’t know if it’s maternal hormones or what, but I’ve never been able to wake at 5:30AM for anything and not feel like I need a nap later in the day. This is a change for the good.

Time seems to move more slowly. This may be because I am now acutely aware of the passage of time due to following Lu’s schedule. When you have just gotten a baby to sleep so that you can tend to your own needs and the household chores, you suddenly become very aware of how long something takes and whether you can multitask, because your hours/minutes are numbered. As a result of this, I have become more productive and efficient, squeezing in all manner of small tasks that need doing while Lucia is asleep. At work the time perception has carried over – I find myself checking my watch still, even though I am not maintaining the household then. This could be because I have to keep a schedule for pumping breastmilk, or face excessive leakage. Boy, mothering is messy in ways I hadn't quite imagined...

Those are the changes that seem the most remarkable to me. I'm sure there are others I am forgetting at the moment... but at the least these 2 are both pretty positive.

Here is one from her big debut.



Will have to do more in the near future.

Little Lucia Valentine Burt was born on May 14th! Can post pics later. She's 11 days old now, and the first bit has been an adjustment - the first few days I was too anxious to sleep, even in the hospital where the nurses had everything well in hand, but since then I have relaxed a bit, and she has begun sleeping longer in the last few days so I can grab a couple hours of sleep at a time myself.

My parents and sister have come as emergency reinforcements (they weren't going to come til much later), thank goodness. Their presence has helped me shake alot of the baby blues I'd been feeling if only because someone other than Chuck is here to hold her while one of us eats/showers/uses the toilet/naps. Hence my finally posting.

Got to go eat dinner now, though, to keep up my strength!